Fashion Retail Experiments With Transient Store Environments

Fashion retails at the minimum have to ‘turn’ their stores over at least four times a year to accommodate the different clothing seasons. This change often involves lots of work moving store fixtures and changing the position of shelves and brackets. We’ve noticed a few new projects which use creative store fixture design to make these transitions easier and more seamless keeping the shopping experience fresh for customers.

The recently completed 24 Issey Miyake shop by Moment Design in Sapporo, Japan sets the bar pretty high in terms of flexibility. The perimeter walls of the shop are covered with one hundred rectangular panels which can be opened into impromptu display surfaces for accessories. Each panel is numbered allowing employees to remotely control which are opened via a digital device. Slotted standards next to each shelf can accept clothing display hangbars.

Freitag’s first store in NYC which opened this past spring features a more low tech shelving system which keeps the company’s bags neatly presented and organized. Each of the one-of-a-kind bags is contained in a corrugated box with a picture and description on the front panel. The boxes can be pulled out to double as shelves and individual bags can be displayed on them. The boxes always remain in the shelving system so the shop never looks empty even if the stock sells down.